EY came close to discovering fraud at the heart of Wirecard in 2016 when the collapsed payments
firm’s trustee in Singapore accidentally told the auditor the truth, stating he did not hold any money on its behalf. At the time, Wirecard’s accounts stated that Citadelle Corporate Services in Singapore oversaw escrow accounts in Asia that held about €150mn in cash. By June 2020, the amount in those accounts had supposedly risen to €1.9bn, when Wirecard disclosed the money did not exist. Wirecard managers rushed to come up with an explanation for the statement by the trustee, who later confirmed to EY that he did hold the cash, said people familiar with the details.
The firm, which audited Wirecard for almost a decade, has been criticised for failing to request documents directly from OCBC, the Singapore bank where the trustee accounts were said to be held. In late March, Rajaratnam told the auditor in writing that «as of 31st of December 2015, there were no monies of Wirecard AG or any of its subsidiaries being held by us in our accounts». In an email on March 29 2016, presented by criminal prosecutors at the Wirecard trial in Munich last week, EY asked Wirecard to «clarify the matter». Bellenhaus told a panel of five judges that Stephan von Erffa, Wirecard’s head of accounting, was asked to resolve the problem.
Didn't do much. EY intentionally or unintentionally dropped the ball of this one. They should have raised the alarm as soon as questions started arising.
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